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Alice is the Senior Curator of Medieval Archaeology & History, with responsibility for the late medieval collections.
Alice’s research interests embrace all kinds of material culture from 500 to 1500 AD, as well as the modern reception of such material. She is currently pursuing research on a range of topics, including medieval seal matrices and heraldic mounts, and is a passionate advocate of the research value of stray medieval finds. She is part of two supervisory teams for AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Awards.
Alice held the Glenmorangie Research position at National Museums for nine years, working on a wide range of early medieval material culture and co-authoring the popular book Early Medieval Scotland: individuals, Communities and Ideas in 2012. In 2017 she co-curated the special exhibition and accompanying publication Scotland’s Early Silver, which told the story of the first thousand years of silver following its arrival with the Roman army. Two papers co-authored by Alice have won academic prizes recognising the quality of their research. She is currently the Grants and Awards Officer for the Society for Medieval Archaeology.
Alice completed her doctorate at the University of Glasgow on Anglo-Saxon material culture from Scotland. She gained an MPhil with Distinction in Archaeological Studies from the University of Glasgow in 2003 and an undergraduate degree in History from the University of Leeds in 2001.
You can follow Alice’s research on Twitter: @earlymedieval
2018 Alberti, S, Blackwell A, Davidson, P, Goldberg M and Swinney G ‘The art and science of replication: copies and copying in the multidisciplinary museum’, in B Brenna (ed) Museum: A Culture of Copies.
2017 Blackwell, A, Goldberg, M and Hunter, F Scotland’s Early Silver: transforming Roman pay-offs to Pictish treasures. Edinburgh: National Museums Scotland.
2016 Blackwell, A and Kirk, S ‘Seventh century or seventeenth century? Identifying glass beads from Scotland’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 145, 371–400. Awarded the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland RBK Stevenson Prize.
2016 Blackwell, A ‘Gleaming eyes and the elaboration of Anglo-Saxon sculpture’, in Hunter, F and Sheridan, A (eds) Ancient Lives: Object, People and Place in Early Scotland. Essays for David V Clarke on His 70th Birthday, 317–30. Leiden: Sidestone.
2014 Foster, S, Blackwell, A and Goldberg, M ‘The legacy of nineteenth-century replicas for object cultural biographies: lessons in duplication from 1830s Fife’, Journal of Victorian Culture 19(2), 137–60. Awarded the St Andrews Preservation Society Prize.
2013 Goldberg, M and Blackwell, A ‘The different histories of the Norrie’s Law hoard’, in Hawkes, J (ed) Making Histories: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Insular Art, York 2011, 326–38.
2012 Clarke, D, Blackwell, A and Goldberg, M Early Medieval Scotland: Individuals, Communities and Ideas. Edinburgh: National Museums Scotland.
2012 Blackwell, A ‘The iconography of the Hunterston brooch and related early medieval material’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 141, 231–48.
2009 Blackwell, A ‘Anglo-Saxon Dunbar, East Lothian: a brief re-assessment of the archaeological evidence and some chronological implications’, Medieval Archaeology 53, 361–71.
2007 Blackwell, A ‘An Anglo-Saxon figure-decorated plaque from Ayton (Scottish Borders), its parallels and implications’, Medieval Archaeology 51, 165–72.
Explore medieval archaeology and history with curator Dr Alice Blackwell.
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